AT&T compromise may get merger approved — WASHINGTON - AT&T Inc. has offered a new set of concessions that are expected to satisfy the two Democrats on the Federal Communications Commission and lead to approval of the company's $85 billion buyout of BellSouth Corp. Approval by the full commission could happen as soon as Friday.

Apple Filing to Tell All on Options — Apple Computer and its charismatic chief executive, Steven P. Jobs, are expected to make a big announcement about a new product at the Macworld conference next month. Before that, however, the company has some other highly anticipated information to share.

How we came up with year-end Zeitgeist data — The Zeitgeist is "the spirit of time." This is why when we come up with the lists of top searches on Google.com for 2006, we do not simply retrieve the most frequently-searched terms for the period — the truth is, they don't change that much from year to year.

More about the Google Zeitgeist — Pulling together interesting search trends and patterns requires Google's human and computing power together. Search statistics are automatically generated based on the millions of searches conducted on Google over a given period of time - weekly, monthly, and annually.

Gmail Disaster: Reports Of Mass Email Deletions — Just a week after I wrote "Uh Oh, Gmail Just Got Perfect" a number of users started complaining that all of their Gmail emails and contacts were auto deleted. — The first message, posted on the Google Groups forum on December 19, stated …

Google's blog search engine takes over top slot — SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) — Given Google Inc.'s dominance of the Internet search and advertising market, it's difficult to think of the company ever needing to pull off an underdog, "Rocky"-style comeback.

Yahoo! Answers Captures 96% of Q and A Market Share — Search Engine Land had an interesting post about question and answer sites today that linked to a thorough reviewfrom MIT Technology Review of six of these sites. Yahoo! Answers was the clear winner, which is can partly be attributed to its sheer volume of users.

Genius Grant Please, or The NSFW HTML Attribute — UPDATE: The idea expressed below has been significantly improved and a brief spec document and example is now available. You might, however, still want to read what follows before proceeding to the aforementioned link.

Cartographers hit the road to bring updated online maps — In an SUV crammed with high-tech gear, Dan Donovan and Ben Woodley trolled last week through a new and virtually treeless subdivision in Troy, Ill. — A green arrow on a dashboard monitor connected to a roof-mounted Global Positioning …

DIY Wii Media Center — Wii owners listen up. The developers at Red Kawa are giving you (and a few PS3 owners) a reason to rejoice. They've created an app that lets you stream pictures, music, and videos from your Mac or PC straight to your Wii. The software is in alpha and only certain files …

The Top Ten Astronomy Images of 2006 — This past year has been — like most are — up and down for science in general and astronomy in particular. We've had stunning successes and heartbreaking setbacks, all of which seem huge when dealing with them at the time.

Guba CEO steps down, says more execs may follow — Guba CEO Thomas McInerney has stepped down from the video-sharing site, marking the second executive shuffle within the sector in a week. — McInerney told CNET News.com that two other Guba executives are likely to follow him.